Wherever This Road May Lead
by The Amazing McCormick
Summary: The Kaiba brothers are on parallel journeys. Their destinations are constantly changing. But now is not the time to dawdle on the past, when their futures lie in the balance.


A/N: Please give this story a chance. This is my first attempt at a Yu-Gi-Oh! story.

* * *

"_Wake up!"_

Who was talking to him? Mokuba could barely hear a voice yelling, pulling him from the grasps of unconsciousness. Subconsciously, he ran through a list of possible people.

"_Come on, sleepyhead! Wake up!"_

The plausible choices would be family and friends. Parents? No. Before the thought had even fully formed, he crossed that item off of the list, though, for the life of him, he couldn't remember _why_. A sibling, maybe? A sister, or a brother?

_Nii-sama…_

An image flashed through the young boy's mind. An older figure, a respected person, someone who cared for him immensely…

But the vision faded as soon as it appeared, and the constant yammering from whoever _was_ calling him cut through his concentration. A sudden desperation seized Mokuba as he clutched at the remains of his vision. Like awakening from a dream and dreading reality, he tried to force himself back under the unconscious darkness. However, it was too late. The vision was being wiped from his memory, along with any recollection of a vision at all. When Mokuba finally opened his eyes to the harsh sunlight, he couldn't remember anything.

The first thing he saw, apart from the blinding brightness that was the sun, was the silhouette of a person leaning over him. He groaned, lifting a hand to shield himself from the brightness. Doing so also enabled him to see the face of the person who was leaning over him. It was a little girl.

"Good! You're up!" the girl said, smiling, "I was starting to get worried."

Mokuba sat up slowly, clutching his head as he did so. The girl had the sense to back off a little bit, letting him get some space to recover.

When the pain ebbed, he lowered his hand. The girl, taking that as a sign that she could interact with him again, spoke up.

"What's your name?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm Mokuba," he said, blinking rapidly. He took in the girl's appearance. She wore shorts, tennis shoes, and a pink and yellow blouse. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she had long bangs that swung in her face. She looked to be around Mokuba's age, if not a little younger.

"Who're you?" Mokuba asked.

"I'm Izanami! 'Course, you can call me 'Nami' if you want." Her smile brightened, but Mokuba was distracted by other things. His head still hurt a bit, and he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something, that he _needed_ something.

"Hey, you know what you need?" Nami asked, as if she had read Mokuba's mind, "You need ice cream! Ice cream makes everything better!"

Mokuba shook his head. That wasn't it.

* * *

Seto had no sense of time passing. The normally on-top-of-things CEO of the Kaiba Corporation found his mind wandering out of control. He had a feeling; a sense of wariness, warning him that something was wrong. But what could it be? Nothing seemed to be off.

While his mind wandered, his fingers typed nonsensically upon the keyboard. It looked as if he were working; and, in truth, he was. His brain was processing the information and keying in the correct commands without him consciously focusing on his task.

"Mr. Kaiba."

Yes, Kaiba was working. But his mind was stuck in a fog. He couldn't make sense of what was around him, and didn't pay any attention to the person calling his name.

"Mr. Kaiba."

Whoever it was, they sure were insistent. But couldn't they see he was _working_? Their nagging was beginning to give him a miserable headache.

"Mr. Kaiba!"

Seto finally looked up, sheer irritation crossing his features. "What?" he snapped.

There was a woman standing in front of his desk. She seemed average height and weight. She wore a dark blue suit jacket and skirt with a white blouse underneath. Her hair was twisted in a bun, and glasses were perched on her nose. She held a briefcase in one hand.

"What do you want?" Seto said, growing even more annoyed that this stranger would interrupt his work. "Why are you here?"

"I'm here to help you," the woman said.

"You're my assistant?" he said, now equal parts puzzled and annoyed.

She didn't reply, but used one finely manicured finger to push her glasses back on her face. Seto sighed; this person wasn't worth his time.

"Who sent you?"

She may or may not have answered him, but he wasn't paying attention, for an urgent notice had popped up on his screen at just that second, calling all of his attention. He set back to work.

He wasn't sure how long he sat at his computer, typing away, but when he looked up, she was still standing there.

"Well?" he asked, "You're my assistant, aren't you? Why aren't you helping?"

"I'll help you when you're ready," the woman replied.

Seto sighed again; this was more trouble than he'd wanted. "What's your name?"

"Tenshi," she replied.

"Alright then, Miss Tenshi," Seto said, already losing interest again, "Start helping by going through the filing cabinets and pulling everything you can that has to do with the Overworld Initiative."

"Yes, sir," Tenshi said, setting her briefcase down. Seto winced as his vision was obscured by the sun glinting off of the case's metal nameplate. The glare prevented him from reading the name printed there.

* * *

A/N: The OCs in this story are _ completely_ necessary. Believe me, the story would not make sense without them. However, if you are worried that this is about to become a typical Mary-Sue or Kaiba Romance type story, have no fear. There will be no romance in this story, and, if you continue to read this story, you'll realize that these two are Mary-Sue types.

On another note, I did put the "nii-sama" bit in here, but I'm only going with the typical Japanese names and such because I'm afraid of being belittled for using the English.

One more thing! This story is currently "unbetaed". I have sent word to three different "Beta Readers", and have received no response as of late. If anyone would be willing to step up and proofread my story, I'd be tremendously grateful.


End file.
